1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a carrier structure of a System-on-Chip (SoC), and more particularly, to a carrier structure of a SoC with a custom interface.
2. Description of Related Art
A system-on-chip (SoC) is an integrated chip having a complete system. In other words, a SoC is an integrated circuit for particular use. It is common for commercially available electronic products to implement such SoCs for minimizing product size. In addition, a SoC typically comprises assemblies related to operation, such as a digital signal processor core, a microprocessor core, a graphic core and so on, plus a memory, a logic circuit, and an I/O circuit and other connecting circuits. Therefore, the SoC as a whole contains a large number of elements and thus has a complex circuit structure.
However, in view of the trends of electronic products toward shortened life cycle and reduced selling price, approaches for simplifying the developing procedures and effectively controlling the manufacturing costs of the complex SoCs in electronic products would be helpful to increasing market share and product profitability.
In order to cut down manufacturing costs, one modular basic structure may be adopted in the SoCs of various electronic products. For instance, in portable communication devices of different models, the baseband-related assemblies may be composed of common elements having identical specifications. Upon this basic structure, a system developer may add more elements for expanding functions, such as radio frequency (RF) elements and memories in portable communication devices, where a semi-custom concept is realized.
However, since the circuits of SoCs are complicated, in the early stage of development, namely the design process, the required elements and structure are determined by system developers independently, and thus vary from one developer to another. Similarly, the late stage of development, such as the manufacturing, testing and packaging procedures, is mostly finished by system developers independently. Thus, a full custom process is accomplished.
While such full custom process from designing to manufacturing provides system developers with great dominance, the costs of manpower and time it takes are considerable. In view of the increased costs and prolonged development cycle, it is believed that by using a carrier structure adaptive to various SoCs at the late stage, namely the manufacturing procedure, of SoC development, the developing procedures can be efficiently reduced.